'Carrie' and the monster who raised me
The devil and his minions have haunted me all my life.
As far back as I can remember, I've been visited by the unquiet dead, the hungry ghosts, and even Old Scratch himself in my dreams. Perhaps these nighttime visitations were spiritual attacks, perhaps they were the predictable manifestation of the violence and instability of my upbringing.
Like Piper Laurie in 'Carrie,' my mother forced me to kneel while she stood above me bellowing. 'Humble yourself before me!' she shrieked. 'GodDAMN you, humble yourself!'
Maybe they were both; maybe the kind of moral derangement that afflicted my parents was a kind of demonic possession.
The devil I know
I'm not sure I believe in God, but I'm getting closer to believing in the devil. That's a confused position, admittedly, but that's what you get from a guy who believed as a child until it was punished out of him and then spent too many years as an obnoxious "new atheist" adult.
Whatever the answer may be, I've been terrified and fascinated by the supernatural, the uncanny, and the grotesque all my life. The kinds of spooky stories that gripped me were the type you find in Victorian English ghost story anthologies. Authors like E.F. Benson, M.R. James, and Elizabeth Gaskell.
If you like these too, no one reads them better than English podcaster Tony Walker. His "Classic Ghost Stories Podcast" is one of the few I find so good that I voluntarily pay for it. This is no amateur sideshow; Walker's narration is professional grade. Why he's not rich reading books for Audible, I'll never know.
Weeping and wailing women in veils who glide down hallways. Rain-bedraggled brides hitchhiking on the side of the road who disappear from their ride's passenger seat as he drives past Resurrection Cemetery. Fingerprints that appear on the windows of automobiles that cross the railroad tracks where a locomotive hit a school bus long ago killing the children on board. Their spirit fingers gently push your car along to make sure you don't meet their sad and untimely fate.
In search of ... belief
Like many kids of the 1970s and 1980s, I grew up watching shows like the cryptid/aliens/spook-filled "In Search Of," narrated by Leonard Nimoy. My library card was full many times over with every book on Bigfoot, extra-sensory perception, telekinesis, poltergeists, and the Bermuda Triangle.
Have you heard about the moving coffins of Barbados? That's top-quality spine tingles. As the story goes, a wealthy family living on the Caribbean island built a family vault in the cemetery. Every time a member died, the crypt was opened to accept a new coffin. And every time the crypt was opened, the coffins that were already there were tossed about helter-skelter.
Maybe it was flood waters. Except that there was no evidence of water incursion. Maybe pranksters did it. But the family sealed the stone door and sprinkled sand on the floor, and there was never a footprint betraying a (living) human presence.
For a proper classic haunting, you can't beat the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. Nearly everyone with a passing familiarity with the spirit world of 20th-century popular culture has seen the photograph of this long dead woman, a translucent, begowned figure descending the grand staircase of the palatial home in Norfolk, England, built during the reign of James I in 1620.
According to two photographers who were documenting the inside of the estate in 1936, as they were setting up a shot, they looked up at the stairs in astonishment. A veiled specter was float-walking silently down the stair treads, and they had just enough time to open the shutter on their plate camera and capture the most famous ghost photograph of all time.
Was she the shade of Lady Dorothy Walpole? Lady Walpole was said to have been immured in a room in Raynham Hall for the rest of her life at the hands of her husband, Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, who was angered by her unfaithful dalliances.
Or was this just the first and best example of trick-ghost photography, a double-exposed photographic plate? In the early days of photography, the public was not wise to the trickery available to a skilled image-maker. Long before Photoshop and AI, the public believed the camera never lies.
I want to believe. There's something magnetic, romantic, and almost erotic about the possibility that a curtain separates us from the realm of the dead and that it thins at certain times, like now. As a child, I delighted in being scared so badly I didn't dare turn off the flashlight under the covers I used for my clandestine and very-much-not-allowed post-bedtime reading.
Joy interrupted
Yet the possibility of an ethereal realm where the dead who refuse to acknowledge their condition "live," a plane where real devil cavorts are not merely fun and games. If that plane exists, and if it's populated by any of the henchmen attributed to Satan, then the other side is very serious business indeed. I'm not so sure I want to believe, in that case, but I'm also not so sure that I don't.
When I was 8 years old, my family took a rare trip to a sit-down restaurant on Christmas Eve. We were poor, and a night out at Demicelli's Italian Restaurant was so special that Christmas would have been joyful even if we didn't get a single present. As we walked toward Placentia Boulevard in Fullerton, California, I looked at the night sky and saw the brightest star I'd ever seen.
"Mommy, look!" I said, tugging at my mother's sleeve. I pulled on her cigarette hand, which annoyed her. "It's the star of Jesus, Mommy. It's the star that guided the Wise Men to the baby Jesus!"
It was wondrous. It made me feel light-headed with a joy I'd never felt.
My mother made a derisive sniggering noise as she blew out smoke. "Oh, no it isn't, Josh," she mocked. "It's just a star. Probably Venus."
My face went red with embarrassment, and I stayed quiet the rest of the night. I felt stupid. Unsophisticated. Dumb. Childlike. Naive. And substandard. This was a problem that repeated itself over the years. My mother was the resentful "victim" type, and she was at war with God.
I convinced her to take us to the Presbyterian church where I'd been (to her reluctance, as she recalled it) baptized as an infant for Christmas Eve services in 1986. Mother spent the walk home railing about those "Goddamned hypocritical Christians! Where were they for this single mother when I needed a little help to put food on the table?"
I can't repeat the rest of what she said in a respectable publication.
Maternal monster
It wasn't until my 40s that I realized why I had been captivated to the point of obsession with certain dark characters in disturbing films like 1976's "Carrie." This was an adaptation of Stephen King's debut novel of the same name, a book that still ranks among his finest work. It's only nominally about a teen girl with telekinesis, the psychic ability to move objects with her mind. The story is really about a frightened girl who grew up with a maternal monster.
If you've seen the movie, you remember Piper Laurie's almost kabuki performance as Margaret White, a religious fanatic tormented by her own sense of failure and sin. Seeing herself as a fallen woman who fornicated with a man, she uses extreme interpretations of scripture to berate and subjugate the result of that union, her daughter, Carrie. Just as Margaret believes she can never be forgiven, she can never forgive her daughter for being born, for embodying her mother's sin in too-real flesh.
So she screams at Carrie, beats her, forces her to confess sins the girl has never committed (they were Margaret's sins), and worst of all, locks her in a "prayer closet." The scene that terrified me the most was the vignette in the dining room when Margaret forces Carrie to her knees as she intones about how God had loosed the raven on the world, and the raven was called sin.
"Say it, woman! Say it!" Margaret screams. "Eve was weak. Eve was weak!"
She drags Carrie to the prayer closet, a black cloak whirling about her like the wings of the raven, and babbles insanely while her daughter screams for mercy. Lighting a candle in the dark, Carrie looks up to a figure of St. Sebastian on the wall, a grotesque effigy with agonized eyes reflecting the pain of his arrow wounds.
Fascinated by fear
Margaret White obviously had a severe condition called Borderline Personality Disorder, which also afflicted my mother. While my mother was not a religious fanatic, she treated me the way Margaret White treats Carrie. Just as in the movie's dining room scene, my mother forced me to kneel while she stood above me bellowing. "Humble yourself before me!" she shrieked. "GodDAMN you, humble yourself!"
My mother did not want what she claimed she wanted: respect and filial piety. She wanted to be worshiped. My mother created herself God in her own image.
So I prayed to God to be delivered from my mother's prison, but I never got an answer, or one I recognized. I was more certain that the world was full of angry entities, though, and to say I felt haunted wouldn't go far enough.
That which terrorizes also fascinates. Over my life, I've tasted and re-tasted the fear through movies like "Carrie" and "Mommie Dearest." Fictional versions of my real-life horror were a poison candy; they hurt so good, like the compulsion to thrust the tongue repeatedly into a canker sore that won't heal.
I still don't know what I believe about God, the soul, heaven, or hell.
I knew what I saw
No Halloween story would be complete without a personal anecdote of an encounter with the unexplained. This is the first time I've told this story to anyone, let alone in print. Like I do myself, you may doubt me. I admit that I was halfway to drunk when it happened. But in the moment, I knew what I saw and heard, I knew I was only buzzed on three beers, not falling-down drunk. I wasn't hallucinating pink elephants or anything else.
It was 1992. I was 18 years old and sharing an apartment with my best friend, Lisa. It was movie night in the living room, and it was my turn to fetch fresh Molson Goldens from the refrigerator. I put the sweating bottles on a round cocktail tray with a rubber no-slip bottom I'd brought home from the restaurant I worked at.
I was a skilled waiter who could hold a tray with four entrees and several cocktails without spilling. And though I'd had a few beers, I was not drunk. In the hallway as I was about to enter the living room, one of the standing beer bottles on the tray violently flipped over to the horizontal with a thud. It wasn't the kind of soft thud that happens when something tips over. It was a THUD, as if someone had thrown the bottle into the tray.
Remember, it was a rubberized tray. It was actually difficult for a glass on such a tray to slide, let alone tip over. I had not tilted the tray; I was not weaving drunkenly as I walked. The other beer bottle didn't tip over. The two mugs on the same tray didn't move. More, the same thing happened a few minutes later in the living room. My (replaced) beer bottle on the side table, three feet from reach, loudly tipped over on a perfectly level table and made a loud rap.
I remember so clearly stopping still as the blood drained from my head. Did I really just see what I thought I saw? I did. And I felt it, too.
In that moment in the hall, I said this in my head: "What you just saw and heard really happened. You're not drunk, and you're not hallucinating. But no one will believe you, and over time, you will not believe you either. Your memory will soften, and you will convince yourself that you were drunk and that you somehow caused these bottles to tip over in apparent defiance of the laws of physics and friction."
That's exactly what happened. As I tell you this story, I doubt myself. At the same time, I remember the warning I spoke to myself in my head about doubt there, in the moment, and I know I wasn't crazy.
Happy Halloween.
Justin Bieber confesses Christian faith in candid livestream
Justin Bieber's latest album ends with the pop star delivering an almost eight-minute, spoken-word retelling of the first three chapters of the book of Genesis.
Now the 31-year-old singer has opened up about his own Christian faith on a recent livestream, a clip of which was shared on YouTube. In it, the Canadian-born heartthrob sits over fast-food takeout with some of his crew, discussing the Bible, God, and what it means to be a man.
'Now we get to live free and rather than focus on sin, now we can focus on Jesus, the wonderful savior.'
Many of Bieber's comments revolve around the responsibility he feels he has to others and to God and how he is doing his best not to judge life based on perceived outcomes.
"It rains on the just and the unjust," Bieber says, going on to stress that:
Bad s**t happens to everybody, you know? Bad s**t happens to good people, good s**t happens to bad people. ... Everyone's on the same equal playing ground, and that's hard for people to really comprehend or want to digest because I think it's makes us feel better to be like, 'Well, I'm better than this guy.'
He adds, "I don't want to think I'm better than anybody 'cause you don't know what someone's born into."
'It's the same thing'
The conversation also turns to matters of morality, with Bieber speaking about taking "ownership" as a man and avoiding the sin of adultery:
"If you even think of a woman with lust it's the same thing as actually doing it; committing adultery or whatever," he says, clearly referring to Christ's Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 5:28. "It's the same thing. So if it even just crosses your mind for one second, if you treat a man with anger or something, it's the same as killing a man, scripture says."
RELATED: Why the Bible is suddenly flying off shelves across America
- YouTube
Am I worthy?
The singer seems to touch on his own mental battles when he speaks of God's mercy.
"Someone's probably struggling with their own self-image of like, 'You know, am I worthy of love?' And God says you are. You know what I mean? I don't make the rules. But Jesus says that, and I really believe Him."
"I believe He loved us so much," Bieber passionately continues.
He put on skin and bones and came onto this Earth as a person, as a human. Lived a sinless life so that we don't have to be focusing on sin because none of us can do the right thing all the time. And then He literally went to the cross, was lashed, whipped, made fun of, then he rose on the third day defeating death, Hell, and the grave. Now we get to live free and rather than focus on sin, now we can focus on Jesus, the wonderful savior. And I really think He's the king of the world, bro. He's the king of Hollywood. He's the king of L.A., bro. He's the king.
— (@)
Transaction reaction
The men further discuss how and when scripture makes its way into their daily lives, with Bieber revealing that at this point in his career, he does not want to work with people for transactional purposes.
"That's what, like, business is these days," he says. "It's just like, 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine.' And you guys, it's not based on love."
When asked how he learned about his faith and if it simply comes from reading the Bible, Bieber responds by saying much of it has stuck with him after his mother rewarded him for memorizing passages as a child.
"I would get a gold star. So I would just memorize it," he recalls enthusiastically.
Bieber admits he often doesn't know where a particular passage comes from in the Bible — just that God brings it to the front of his mind.
"The scripture says, 'I will remind you the things that I've told you' and He just reminds me," Bieber concludes. "Because He knows what I want. He knows that I want this for other people. So I think He puts it to my brain."
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George Soros ADMITS he’s an atheist
When you hear the name George Soros, one of the words that comes to mind is “globalist.” However, despite his obvious intentions for the world, what few know is what truly fuels his ideology.
“You think ‘open borders,’ which is accurate, but that doesn’t actually describe what he believes. He’s been somewhat reticent to admit publicly what his beliefs are. And so, some people will be like, ‘Oh, he’s a communist. He’s a Marxist. He’s a socialist,’” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler says on “The Liz Wheeler Show.”
“Well, not exactly. ... In a sense, it would be easier if he were because it would be easier to define and identify the various parts of his ideology and his work, but he’s not. So, what is he? Because globalism and open borders — that’s not really an end. That’s a means to an end,” she continues.
That’s why Wheeler has done a deep dive into Soros’ background, and in doing so she stumbled on a 1998 interview Soros did on “60 Minutes.”
“Are you religious?” the interviewer asked.
“No,” Soros replied.
“Do you believe in God?” the interviewer pressed further.
“No,” Soros again replied, short and quick.
“Soros told us he believes God was created by man, not the other way around, which may be why he thinks he can smooth out the world’s imperfections,” the interviewer narrated.
“So, not to sound preachy here, not to sound religious, but George Soros’ hatred of the United States and our norms and our traditions and our sovereignty is based on hatred of the foundational principles on which our country was built, that of God and Christianity,” Wheeler says.
“And isn’t this always the case? It’s always a hatred of God that motivates them. That’s why they killed Charlie,” she continues.
“They want to destroy all definitions of objective reality, because that is written by God. That’s natural law,” she adds. “That’s why they’re seething with hatred at the United States, because we’re built as a Christian nation to allow us to glorify God. That’s why they want to dehumanize us, because we are made in the image of God.”
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Christians are refusing to compromise — and it's terrifying all the right people
Only in the upside-down world of elite evangelicalism could repentance look like rebellion.
David French recently made a telling admission: He is "nervous" about "something" that is "stirring in Christian America." That "something," French insists, is that contrary to news that a Christian revival is under way in America, what is actually happening is not revival but "religious revolution."
Revival always looks like revolution to those who've made peace with decay.
The evidence? Jan. 6 (of course), a nuanced Christian debate about empathy, and Charlie Kirk's memorial service.
Authentic revival, according to French, would be focused on the self because true revival "begins with the people proclaiming, by word and deed, 'I have sinned.'"
But so-called MAGA Christianity, he claims, announces a different message: "It looks at American culture and declares, 'You have sinned.'" French continues:
And it doesn't stop there. It also says, "We will defeat you." In its most extreme forms, it also says, "We will rule over you." That's not revival; it's revolution, a religious revolution that seeks to overthrow one political order and replace it with another — one that has echoes of the religious kingdoms of ages past.
And don't be fooled when these revolutionaries call themselves "conservative." All too many conservative Christians are actually quite proudly radical. They want to demolish the existing order, including America's commitment to pluralism and individual liberty, and put their version of Christianity at the center of American political life.
It's clear that French sees the stirring of Christian faith across America — Christians re-engaging in politics, education, and culture — but instead of feeling encouraged or hopeful, he sees it as dangerous. He wants you to believe that ordinary Christians working to build communities shaped by biblical values are flirting with authoritarianism.
But what he can't seem to imagine is that maybe this is what authentic renewal looks like: Christians waking up to the world around them, tired of pretending their convictions don't belong in public life.
Revival, after all, always looks like revolution to those who've made peace with decay.
Domesticated faith exposed
French's nervousness reveals something deeper than politics. It exposes a theology that's been domesticated, one that treats faith as a private matter rather than a public demonstration of allegiance to Jesus Christ.
In his view, repentance is safe only when it stays inside the confines of the individual heart. But Christian faith is not individualistic. Repentance — literally meaning "turning back" or "returning" to God — is not limited to what one person can do for themselves. The Bible does not recognize the division that French asserts.
Instead, when people repent and turn back to God, hearts are transformed and households are changed. And when households change, communities change. And when communities change, culture is transformed.
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Every true revival — from King Josiah's reforms (2 Kings 22-23; 2 Chronicles 34-35) to the Great Awakenings — has looked political to those invested in the old order. That's because repentance, by its nature of not being limited to the self, always has public consequences. You can't toss aside sin and put on the "new self," as the apostle Paul calls it, without eventually dethroning the idols of the city.
The gospel doesn't just save people. It literally institutes a new Kingdom, one in which all reality is reordered around the lordship of King Jesus.
So when French frets about Christians who are "quite proudly radical," he misses the point. He sees a problem with Christians who want to tear down the "existing order" — as if that order has borne good fruit — and assumes they're driven by a lust for power and control. That critique is worse than lazy. It's slanderous.
In truth, these Christians aren't seeking power and control. They're simply refusing to bow to the false gods of our age.
Repentance reshapes reality
The "existing order" that French defends isn't morally neutral, working for the flourishing of all people. No. It's an anti-God order that calls confusion "compassion," celebrates sin, and treats moral clarity as a threat to democracy. It's an order where drag queens read to children, abortion is called "health care," and Christians are pushed to the margins of polite society.
Yet to French, the problem isn't the godlessness but the Christians who dare call it out, stand against it, and seek to reform it. This brand of "respectable" faith demands silence in the face of cultural collapse. It's the faith that turns a blind eye to societal sin over fear that conviction may be mistaken for cruelty or — gasp — power-grabbing.
But a Christianity that never offends the world will never change it. Jesus didn't die to make the world more comfortable. He died to make you and me new people, and new people — those whose allegiance to Jesus bears conformity to his Kingdom — inevitably shape the world around them.
Call it "Christian nationalism," call it whatever you want, but the truth is this: The existence of the Kingdom of Heaven, which Jesus inaugurated, means that Christians right now are living out obedience to Christ. Christ is reigning, and that means His people, wherever they live, make their communities and countries more Christian.
And a more Christian world requires confronting the idols of our time and tearing them down, not politely negotiating with them.
Perhaps French is right: A revolution is under way. But it's not happening in Washington. It's unfolding quietly in small-town homes and churches across America, where Christians are repenting, rebuilding, and reordering their lives around the Kingdom of God.
Revolution unto God
We're now back to where we began: Only in the upside-down world of elite evangelicalism could repentance look like rebellion.
But maybe that's exactly what real repentance is supposed to look like in a culture that is so drunk on self-worship that it has not only rejected God or tried to erase Him, but it has tried to become like God.
French sees danger where there's actually deliverance: A generation of Christians waking up, tired of compromise, refusing to bow to Nebuchadnezzar's statue. He mistakes courage for cruelty and conviction for control. But the truth is simple: You can't have revival without resistance, and every age that bows to godless idols sees repentance as subversion.
If repentance and revival is returning to God, then revolution is what happens when enough people finally do.
Miracle, ‘man of steel,’ or mystery? Surgeon’s shocking words about Charlie Kirk’s wound
Following Charlie Kirk's assassination, Turning Point USA spokesman and executive producer of the “Charlie Kirk Show" Andrew Kolvet revealed new details about the shooting that even doctors are calling a miracle.
According to Kolvet, the surgeon who operated on Kirk claimed that the high-velocity bullet was powerful enough to kill multiple large animals — and “should have gone through” his body.
But for some reason, Kirk’s body was able to stop it.
“I want to address some of the discussion about the lack of an exit wound with Charlie,” Kolvet wrote in a post on X.
“The fact that there wasn’t an exit wound is probably another miracle, and I want people to know,” Kolvet continued, explaining that he had spoken with the surgeon who worked on Charlie in the hospital.
“He said the bullet ‘absolutely should have gone through, which is very very normal for a high powered, high velocity round. I’ve seen wounds from this caliber many times and they always just go through everything. This would have taken a moose or two down, an elk, etc,’” he recalled.
“But it didn’t go through. Charlie’s body stopped it,” he added.
When he mentioned to the doctor that there were “dozens of staff, students, and special guests standing directly behind Charlie” when he was shot, the doctor reportedly replied, “It was an absolute miracle that someone else didn’t get killed.”
“His bone was so healthy and the density was so so impressive that he's like the man of steel,” Kolvet recalls the doctor saying.
While BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey notes that “some people aren’t buying that,” she says that she doesn’t have a reason not to.
“Of course I believe it’s possible for God to do anything. And he’s saying it’s miraculous. And miraculous means that it goes beyond reason or even the laws of physics,” she says. “And so I have no reason to believe that this is untrue.”
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Why Gen Z is rebelling against leftist lies — and turning to Jesus
Picture it: 8,000 college students packed into an arena. Not to watch basketball but baptisms. Hundreds stepped into portable tanks while their friends cheered, with 500 professing faith in Christ that night alone.
This scene unfolded recently at the University of Tennessee, a major state university. It wasn’t an isolated incident. The Unite US revival movement, which began at Auburn University two years ago, has now spread to more than 20 college campuses nationwide.
The problem with building your worldview on sand is that eventually people notice that they’re sinking.
Here’s what’s happening: For decades, secular progressives positioned themselves as countercultural rebels against the oppressive Christian tradition. But they overplayed their hand. They became the establishment.
The result? Young people are now rebelling against them by turning to Jesus Christ in record numbers.
Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10, churches report attendance increases of 15% and campus ministries are seeing even higher numbers. Bible sales in 2025 have surged past 10 million copies, already over a million more than last year.
The establishment's overreach
The secular left didn’t just ask for “tolerance” of its beliefs — leftists demanded total capitulation. Over the past six decades, they captured universities, media, entertainment, corporations, and government agencies, then wielded these institutions like weapons.
They told young men their masculinity was toxic. They told young women that marriage and motherhood were a trap. They flooded schools with gender ideology and characterized objecting parents as “domestic terrorists.” University DEI offices became enforcement arms for ideological conformity. During COVID, they locked down churches while keeping abortion clinics and strip clubs open. They promised liberation and delivered loneliness, anxiety, and existential despair. Then they called Christianity oppressive.
The problem with building your worldview on sand is that eventually people notice that they’re sinking.
Scripture tells us that God has written His law on every human heart (Romans 2:15). You can suppress that truth, but you cannot erase it. When a generation has been fed nothing but lies dressed as progress, the hunger for truth becomes overwhelming.
Why young men are leading
Research from Pew shows that for decades, each age cohort was less Christian than the one before it. But that trend has stopped with Gen Z. Americans born in the 2000s are just as Christian as those born in the 1990s, the first generation in decades not to show further decline.
Even more striking: Gen Z men now attend weekly religious services more often than Millennials and younger Gen Xers. The gender gap in religious participation has closed, with young men flooding back even as some young women leave.
The secular progressive vision has been particularly hostile to biblical masculinity. Men were told that their natural inclinations toward strength, protection, and leadership were “toxic,” that the desire to work hard and keep your feelings private promoted aggression toward women and the vulnerable, that embracing traditional marriage roles reinforced gender power imbalances and made society less safe.
Kirk recognized that men who fear God more than they fear man build the foundations of civilization.
By contrast, the church doesn’t tell young men that they’re inherently evil. Instead, it calls them to be servant leaders after the pattern of Christ, to lay down their lives as He laid down His for the Church (Ephesians 5:25), and to be strong and courageous in the face of evil (Joshua 1:9).
Scripture has always offered a vision of masculinity that is both strong and sacrificial. When a generation of young men have been told they’re “toxic” simply for being masculine, the gospel’s call to biblical manhood becomes irresistibly attractive.
Charlie Kirk understood this. He often told young men: “Get married. Have children. Build a legacy. Pass down your values. Pursue the eternal. Seek true joy.”
Kirk recognized that men who fear God more than they fear man build the foundations of civilization.
His assassination, meant to silence a voice calling people back to faith and family, had the opposite effect. As one pastor noted, “Charlie Kirk started a political movement, but he ended it as a Christian movement.”
His memorial, attended by 100,000 and viewed by millions, became a gospel proclamation. Young people decided they wanted what Kirk had found: purpose, meaning, and hope anchored in Jesus Christ.
Expect a backlash
Amid all this good news, Christians should never underestimate the resistance that will come from the cultural elites.
Expect increased persecution on campuses. Institutions that previously celebrated every sexual deviation will now express concern about “cultlike behavior” when students undergo baptism. University administrators, who previously ignored the Black Lives Matter riots, will now seek to restrict Christian gatherings. Media outlets that praised “mostly peaceful protests” will warn about the dangers of “religious fervor.”
That’s because spiritual warfare is afoot, and the enemy knows what’s at stake. When young people turn to Christ, they don’t just become saved, they also become transformed. They get married, have children, and raise the next generation in biblical truth. Civilizational renewal begins with revival.
True revival or cultural moment?
It’s also crucial not to mistake enthusiasm for revival. True revival brings conviction of sin, genuine repentance, hunger for God Himself, and hearts transformed by the gospel, not just increased church attendance.
Time will tell whether these professions of faith endure. Jesus warned that many hear the word with initial enthusiasm but fall away when trials come (Matthew 13:1-23). We must pray that these young believers sink roots deep into scripture and persevere.
But we should also recognize what God may be doing. When thousands pack arenas across multiple campuses to worship Christ, that’s not normal in modern America. As Paul wrote, “What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice” (Philippians 1:18).
RELATED: Charlie Kirk's legacy exposes a corrosive lie — and now it's time to choose
This isn’t just about individual souls, though. It’s about Western civilization itself. Strong families produce stable societies. If this revival takes root, we’ll see the reversal of family collapse, demographic decline, and cultural decay.
The secular left knows this. Leftists built their project on the destruction of the family, the confusion of gender, and the rejection of biblical authority.
Every young person who turns to Christ, gets married, and raises godly children is a defeat for their vision. Every young man who embraces biblical masculinity is a threat to their power. Every young woman who chooses motherhood over careerism is a rebellion against their ideology.
The gospel offers what secular humanism never could: forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice, transformation through the Holy Spirit, adoption into God’s family, and a purpose that echoes into eternity.
Most importantly, it offers Jesus Himself: the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Not a system of self-improvement or a political ideology, but a Savior and friend who loved us enough to die for us and who conquered death and rose again.
What we must do now
At key points, there is always a moment when God’s mercy is clearly apparent. This is one of those moments, and Christians must seize on it and fan the flames.
How? Take the following steps:
- Preach the full gospel: Not a therapeutic version that makes Jesus your life coach but the biblical truth that we are sinners under God’s just wrath, that Christ died in our place, that He rose conquering death, and that all who repent and believe in Him will be saved.
- Live lives that reflect what we proclaim: Young people are watching. If we want this generation to take Christianity seriously, they need to see Christians who love faithfully, raise children in the Lord, and stand for truth — even when it costs them.
- Disciple intentionally: It’s not enough for young people to make a profession at a revival event. They need scripture, mentorship, and biblical thinking for every area of life. This is the Great Commission: Make disciples, not just converts (Matthew 28:19-20).
Finally, if you’re a student reading this, recognize that your campus could be next for real revival. How can you help advance it? Start a regular prayer meeting. Invite your skeptical friends to church. Be bold when professors mock Christianity. Defend biblical truth.
You’ve been trained for this moment. Now step into it.
The victory is already won
The gates of hell will not prevail against Christ’s church (Matthew 16:18). We don’t fight for victory — we fight from victory.
The secular left’s project was always doomed because it was built on lies — and lies cannot ultimately triumph over truth Himself. The same God who sparked the Great Awakening, who raised up Luther to reform His church, who turned the persecutor Saul into the apostle Paul is still at work today.
The question isn’t whether God will prevail. That’s already settled. The question is whether we’ll have the courage to stand with Him while He does.
If He chooses to use the overreach of secular progressives and the hunger of a desperate generation to turn society back to Him, that’s precisely how God works. He uses the wrath of man to praise Him (Psalm 76:10). He takes what enemies meant for evil and works it for good (Genesis 50:20).
So let the secularists tighten their grip on their failing institutions. Every act of overreach, every attempt to silence the gospel only makes Christianity’s countercultural appeal stronger.
They made rebellion against God the establishment position. Now, young people are rebelling by turning back to Him.
The age of comfortable, culturally acceptable Christianity is over. What’s rising in its place is something far more dangerous to the powers of this world: a generation that has counted the cost and chosen Christ anyway. A generation that knows following Jesus might cost them jobs, friends, and status and has decided He’s worth it.
This is how reformation begins. This is how revival spreads. This is how civilizations are rebuilt from the rubble of failed ideologies.
The question isn’t whether God will prevail. That’s already settled. The question is whether we’ll have the courage to stand with Him while He does.
The revolution has already begun. The only question left is: Which side of history will you be on?
This article is adapted from an essay originally published at Liberty University's Standing for Freedom Center.
How to bring Charlie Kirk's vision to life — starting in your own family
When Charlie Kirk was brutally martyred last month, I was only about a month postpartum. The news hit me like a freight train. That night, I woke up repeatedly, not to feed my baby, but because my heart was pounding. I kept asking myself, “Is this real? Is he really gone?”
Like so many others, I was shaken — stunned, unsettled, and deeply disturbed. As a mom, all I could think about was his wife, Erika, and two children left behind to pick up the pieces. Charlie’s legacy lives on, and his death has ignited a fire in a hopeless world. His impact has rippled across the nation and the globe — especially in the younger generation.
We’re not just raising kids. We’re training warriors for a fight that’s already begun.
I’ve always resolved to raise strong children, those who love God, love others, and courageously stand for truth. That conviction has only deepened. As a mom now of two littles — a toddler son and a newborn girl — I’m determined to do my part in raising the next generation to be like Charlie Kirk.
I’m more emboldened, unwavering, and unapologetic in that calling — and I want to encourage others to stand just as firmly.
The culture war is here
When the Israelites were exiled to Babylon, captives in a godless country, the prophet Jeremiah told them to seek the “welfare” of the city. He said, “For in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7). The Hebrew word for "welfare" is shalom, meaning peace, wholeness, or flourishing.
Though devastated and disoriented, the Jewish exiles were charged to build homes, plant gardens, raise families, and pray for the peace and prosperity of the very nation that had conquered them. For 70 years, they were to live as a distinct people in a foreign land — engaged, not removed — trusting that God’s purposes extended even into exile.
If they were called to bless a wicked nation that wasn’t their own, how much more should we, living in the freest country in the world, rise to that responsibility?
It starts in the home; it starts with us. The Jewish exiles were called to have families and raise godly children, and so are we. We’re in a culture war — no matter how we feel about it or whether we like it.
As parents, we hold a sacred and irreplaceable role in shaping the hearts and minds of our children — future leaders who will either transform the culture or be shaped by it.
One day, our children may ask: “Where were you when they were killing innocent babies? Where were you when boys were allowed in girls’ locker rooms? Where were you when the truth was under attack?”
What will we say?
Scripture is clear: We are called to teach and train the next generation. We weren’t made to sit passively on the sidelines while the world unravels. Comfort, complacency, and silence are not options in a culture that is increasingly hostile to truth. We have a weighty, joyful, and urgent responsibility to raise bold warriors for Christ.
Let’s raise children who are like sharpened arrows, aimed at the heart of the culture with courage, conviction, and clarity. But here’s the deal: We can’t call them to be what we’re not. We must be the bright lights first — refusing to cower in fear, shining truth into the darkest places.
Let’s raise them to stand — and let’s show them how.
Faith is the great stabilizer
Without faith, it’s impossible to please God, and it’s impossible to have a thriving society.
At Charlie’s memorial, pastor Rob McCoy said: “Charlie looked at politics as an on-ramp to Jesus. He knew if he could get all of you rowing in the streams of liberty, you’d come to its source, and that’s the Lord.”
It’s all about God.
Our priorities must always be clear: Faith, family, and freedom — in that order.
RELATED: Meek, not weak: The era of Christian loserdom is over
Jesus calls us to be salt and light in a dark and decaying world. Salt doesn't just give flavor, but it preserves, purifies, and sustains. Jesus warned, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot” (Matthew 5:13).
We are at a crossroads. We can either stay silent — choosing comfort and curated lives on the sidelines — or we can engage, stand firm, and live out our faith with boldness and conviction. Because if we don’t show up, our freedoms will quietly disappear, and so will the future we hope to hand our children.
Where do we start?
For me, part of that answer has come through the example of my friend Katy Faust, founder of Them Before Us. Her clarity, courage, and commitment to truth have shaped the way I approach parenting and cultural engagement. She speaks boldly on the issues others avoid and models the kind of conviction I hope to carry into every stage of motherhood.
Her book “Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City” is a must-read for any parent navigating today’s cultural landscape.
One of its most powerful takeaways is her challenge to parents: Know your stuff, study the issues of the day, understand the world your kids are growing up in, and, most importantly, know your Bible deeply and thoroughly.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination wasn’t an isolated tragedy but a symptom of something deeper: a cultural war rooted in the rejection of God and biblical truth. And the only way we fight back is by getting our own houses in order.
That means:
- God first. Family second. Country third. In that order!
- Making our homes fortresses of faith and places of refuge.
- Knowing the Word. Studying the issues. Teaching our children.
- Modeling the courage we want to see in them — starting with what may seem like the “small” things, such as refusing to affirm falsehoods by using preferred pronouns that contradict biological reality.
We’re not just raising kids. We’re training warriors for a fight that’s already begun.
The moment demands courage
When my son was growing in my womb just over two and a half years ago, I often thought, “He’s going to be a world-changer.” That’s our prayer as parents — not just to raise good kids, but to raise world-changers and strong leaders.
But the truth is: Leaders aren’t born — they’re forged.
Charlie Kirk was forged by fire. Tested, tried, and unwavering, he stood for truth when it cost him everything. He was bold. He was brave. And he refused to back down. Characteristics I want to see in my kids as we train them.
Now it’s our turn, not just to admire that kind of courage, but to cultivate it in our children.
Here’s where we start: Lead by example. Let them see you live with conviction. Take them to church. Root them in eternal truth. Teach them what’s true — and how to stand for it. Help them think critically and speak clearly. Show them how to live courageously in a world that fears truth.
In 1 Peter 3:15, the apostle Peter exhorts believers to “always be prepared to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” with “gentleness and respect.” This isn’t optional. It’s a call to know what we believe, why we believe it, and how to communicate it thoughtfully and confidently.
If we want to make an impact, being believers that obey God’s commands, this means we must dive deep into the scriptures, study apologetics, and understand the cultural issues of our time through a biblical lens.
If we want to raise warriors, we must be warriors. Raising the next generation of leaders begins with intentional, everyday decisions — in the home, at the dinner table, and in how we respond to the culture around us.
The battle isn’t coming — it’s already here.
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